Before the Forum, the real agenda fight begins: why the UNRBHR 2026 consultations matter for Asia-Pacific

The United Nations Responsible Business and Human Rights Forum in Asia-Pacific is still months away, but one important stage starts now. In the week of 6 April 2026, the organisers will hold stakeholder-specific consultation sessions to gather input on the Forum’s direction, priorities and format. They have invited both new and experienced participants across stakeholder groups, and said key takeaways will be shared afterwards.

That may sound procedural, but it matters more than it seems. For businesses, civil society groups, worker representatives, policymakers and development actors, this is the point where the Forum can still be shaped before the public agenda is fixed. Once the programme is set, the room for influence becomes much smaller. The 2026 Forum itself is scheduled for 14 to 17 September 2026 in Bangkok under the theme “Building Resilience, Advancing Rights”.

For Asia-Pacific, this matters because responsible business debates in the region are becoming more demanding and more connected. Questions around labour rights, migrant workers, remedy, due diligence, responsible purchasing, gender, climate and supply chain resilience no longer sit in separate boxes. Buyers, suppliers, governments and civil society are all dealing with the overlap. A regional forum only has real value if it reflects those pressures honestly and gives enough space to the practical barriers behind them.

That is why the consultation process deserves attention in its own right. It gives stakeholders a chance to say which issues need more focus, which voices are still underrepresented, and what kind of format would make the Forum more useful. The fact that the invitation is open to both new and experienced participants also matters. Forums of this kind can easily become too familiar, with the same institutions returning each year while smaller suppliers, worker groups and local organisations remain harder to hear. The consultations are a chance to widen that circle before the main event begins.

The 2026 theme also points to an important tension. In supply chain discussions, resilience is often reduced to continuity, diversification and managing disruption. But a supply chain is not resilient if the cost of coping with shocks is pushed onto workers or vulnerable communities. By pairing resilience with rights, the Forum signals that commercial adaptation and rights protection should be discussed together rather than as competing concerns. That makes the agenda-setting stage even more important.

The consultation process also carries weight because of who is behind it. According to the public announcement, UNRBHR2026 is organised by the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, IOM Asia Pacific, UN Human Rights – Asia, UNDP in Asia and the Pacific, UNEP Asia and the Pacific, UN Women Asia and the Pacific, and UNICEF East Asia and Pacific, in collaboration with the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. That mix brings labour, migration, development, environment, gender and child rights perspectives into the same space, which fits the reality that business-related harms in the region rarely fall into only one category.

The value of a forum does not begin on the opening day. It begins much earlier, when priorities are still being chosen and gaps can still be addressed. Those who want this year’s Forum to be more practical, more grounded and more responsive to what is happening across Asia-Pacific supply chains should pay attention now.

Registration link:

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=Xtvls0QpN0iZ9XSIrOVDGbgnF0B0x3NEm0M4UmcAcetUQVI5V0hPVDg3V0dHNzJKTTc3QkZZSDFUNi4u

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